Alex Hamilton leads La. Tech to road win

HOUSTON – Alex Hamilton tied a career high with 31 points to go along with a game-high nine rebounds and five assists to lead Louisiana Tech to a 90-78 road win over Rice on Thursday night inside Tudor Fieldhouse.

After over a dozen lead changes and eight ties, Tech (17-5, 6-3 C-USA) found itself down by eight, 59-51, to Rice (7-15, 2-7 C-USA) with 10:40 left in the game.

From there though it was all Bulldogs as the team outscored the Owls, 39-19, the rest of the way on the back of Hamilton who passed Paul Millsap and Karl Malone on the all-time career scoring list.

Helping Hamilton put all of the points was Erik McCree (15) who scored the first nine points of the game for the ‘Dogs. Also in double digits were Dayon Griffin (15) and Derric Jean (12).

Tech wound up shooting 34-of-61 from the field for 55.7 percent, the second-best shooting performance this season.

Rice finished shooting 25-of-58 from the field for 43.1 percent and were led by Egor Koulechov who had a 20 points.

Tech now heads to Denton on Saturday where it will take on North Texas. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m. and will be broadcast live on the American Sports Network.